Alternative Development Policies in Arab-Revolution States

Abstract

This study seeks to identify and propose alternative development policies for Arab spring countries using new multi-faceted, inter-disciplinary methodological approaches and tools from the social sciences to avoid reductionist understandings. In an effort to go beyond the applications of neo-liberalism that have enshrined social exclusion, and led to the eruption of the revolutions, particular attention is given to the notion of “a historical opportunity” that presented itself with the fourth wave of revolutions sparked by the Arab Spring. The paper notes the need for policies that aim at social inclusion and greater access to the market and decision-making process for groups that have been marginalized for decades. In choosing alternative development policies, this study relies on two key units of analysis: the financial and cash economy and the human economy; that is, the economy of decent living that assumes development is coupled with freedom and focuses on the economy of citizenship as a practice rather than just a system of rights. The planning of alternative development policies calls for policies that suit the local context, apart from the assumptions of grand theories and ideologies that disregard the richness of cultural specificities, fail to understand local value systems, and neglect the need to provide new developmental policy responses to them.